[Galadriel55]

The man introduced himself. He said that his business in the Shire was “researching”, whatever that meant. The closest word Al has ever heard was “search”, so he assumed that Master Hamwill’s first search was fruitless and he had to do it again. But what could be so important that a man from Bree would travel to the Shire – a thing almost unheard of - just to look for it? Al couldn’t hide his annoyance and disapproval this time. However, the man didn’t seem to notice, and went on about his travels.

“There was a farmer nearby who told me a good bit about mushrooms. He had horses the size of hounds - er, hounds the size of horses - too." Now this is something more or less familiar. That must be old Farmer Maggot – who else could have dogs the size of horses? But there is something odd about this whole thing. Either the man is exaggerating, or I have not known Maggy! Him, giving away his mushroom secrets?! He’d rather swim down the Withywindle! Al accounted the confusing part about horses and dogs for the man’s queerness and lack of hobbit common sense (hobbit, because men simply didn’t have it). If he would ever have seen a real horse in his life, he’d take the last part with skepticism as well.

Some disbelief must have shown on Al’s face, because Hamwill stopped talking. After a small pause, he added, “In any case, if you are from Brandy Hall, would you mind talking?”

At that point, Al’s head almost exploded with curses, retorts, questions, and outrage. Unfortunately, they couldn’t all come out of his mouth at the same time no matter how much he tried (which was very lucky, because the tome that the man was holding looked pretty heavy). He even turned a bit red from the effort. After a few moments he finally choked out of himself a politely-worded but rude-sounding reply: “Talking about what, Master Hamwill?”